The Kite Runner: of fathers and sons

Being a father of four children (three daughters and one son), it comes natural for me to be interested in parenting issues, especially fatherhood issues.

Thus, in the inspiring story of The Kite Runner (both the book by Khaled Hosseini and the movie recently shown in theaters), the theme of fatherhood as depicted by the principal characters Baba, Rahim, and Ali as the fathers; Amir, Hassan, and Sohrab as the sons, jumps out right away at me.

Baba is the main father figure in the story. He is father to Amir, the main character and from whose point of view the story is told.

Baba is a good person but a hard, discouraging father at the beginning of the story. He is a single parent whose wife died while she was giving birth to Amir – a circumstance to which Amir attributes Baba’s aloofness and seeming indifference to him. Baba raises Amir alone and in Amir’s words, “molded me to his own liking, in the same way that he molded the world to his own liking seeing the world as black and white and deciding too what was white and what was black”. Baba wants Amir to be like him who hunts and plays football, but Amir would rather stay home or play with his friend Hassan, recite poetry, read a book or write stories. Baba’s cold attitude as a parent makes Amir unable to love his father and in the process sort of “fear him too and hate him a little”. As a result Amir quietly defies his father and decides he will not succumb to his father’s “molding” ways.

The silent animosity between father and son ends when Amir joins and wins a kite-flying contest and ties his own father’s record in the number of kites he cut down. Later, the relationship between the two strengthens as they flee from war-torn Afghanistan and in the process Baba shows Amir how he stood up even to the point of risking even his own life in order to save an unknown woman from a Russian soldier’s vile intentions. As immigrants in the United States Baba once again shows Amir how he can make personal sacrifices for his son’s sake. Forced to live in a foreign country, Baba dies broken hearted but fully resigned to what Amir had made of himself – a writer happily married to a wonderful woman.

Rahim is Baba’s best friend and business partner and personifies the father figure that Amir longed for. Not having a family of his own, Rahim loves Amir like his own son and encourages him to do what he is best at – writing. Rahim becomes Amir’s mentor, reads Amir’s writings and gives him the affirmations that Amir desperately seeks from his own father. He also utters a memorable line to Abba about parenting: “Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors.” Towards the end of the story and with Baba already dead, he plays a father’s role as he advises Amir to do what needs to be done: “There is a way to be good again.” And this paves the way to Amir’s complete healing in the end.

Ali is the devout and loyal servant of Baba. He is Hassan’s father. Like Baba, he is a single parent as his wife abandoned him and Hassan a week after Hassan’s birth. He himself grew up with Baba just as the boys Amir and Hassan grew up together.

Not much is said of Ali in the book and in the movie except that he raised Hassan by himself and loved his son very much. For me, that is enough to speak of him as a great father. If a father can raise a son by himself and the son grows up to be a boy and later a man who is as loyal, courageous and upright as his father, then I salute that father.

Hassan is Ali’s son who would do things “a thousand times over” for Amir, his friend and master. He helps Amir win the kite flying contest but in the process becomes the helpless victim of Amir’s enemies even as Amir simply watches from afar. Hassan proves his love and loyalty when he stands his ground and lays down his life and his future for Amir’s sake. Hassan himself would become a father later to Sohrab who also would exemplify his grandfather Ali’s and his father Hassan’s values of loyalty and courage.

Amir, our main protagonist and storyteller is initially the weakling son and friend who can’t fend for himself against his bully playmates. He later commits a grave sin against his friend Hassan. As an adult towards the end, he makes up for it all, finds “a way to be good again”, and finally stands his ground not only for himself but also for Sohrab, Hassan’s son, who by now has become his own adopted son.

I can see some lessons here for both fathers and sons. For us who are sons, I guess we must try to understand where our fathers are coming from in the way they have reared us. We have to realize that our fathers could not have given what they did not have and that they could only be a father to us in the same manner that their own father had been to them.

Although we may not admit it, I guess there is a Baba in all of us fathers even as we want to become like Rahim and Hassan. We somehow want our children, especially our sons, to be like us, to follow in our footsteps. We don’t seem to realize at first that our children are their own persons, that we cannot act like God who can make our children in our own image and likeness, and that they are not just coloring books where we can paint our own colors. But in the end, we should realize that we are simply God’s stewards for our children in this earth. It is our obligation to see to it that they grow up and fulfill their respective roles given to them by God. We can only give them roots to keep them firm and grounded on strong values, then give them wings while they search for their own place under the sun.